Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1887-01-19
CLEANLINESS OF ENcusHMEN.
Customs of English Upper Classes-Toilet
Arrangements in France.

Arrangements I'm France.
Man is not usually a cleanly animal,
yet cleanliness is sometimes attained by
him as an exceptional state, and the
modern English believe themselves to be
a much cleaner people than the French.
The claim is founded on the habits of the
English upper class and the richer middle
class, in which, no doubt, greater perfec-
ton of daily and hourly cleanliness is
maintained than is common among
French people. But here again the ques-
ton of chronology recurs. How long
have the English upper classes been SO
perfectly and continuously clean as they
are to-day? Observe that it is the con-
tinuity of the cleanliness that makes all
the difference The skin of Frenchman
is clean after he has taken his warm bath,
but he does not take one every morning.
The Englishlnan, unless his health is too
delicate to bear it, sponges himself all
over every morning in his own dressing
room.
This custom began to be prevalent
amongst young men in England when !
was boy. The men of the preceding
generation did exactly as Frenchmen do
to-day; they took a warm bath occasion
ally for cleanliness, and they took shower
baths when they were prescribed by the
physician for health, and they bathed IN
summer seas FOR pleasure, but they did
not wash themselves all over every morn
ing. l remember ON old gentleman, of
good family and estate, arguing against
this strange, new-fangled custom, and
maintaining that it was quite unneces-
sary to wash the skin in modern times.
as the impurities were removed by linen.
However, the new custom took deep root
In England, because it became one of the
signs of class. 1t was adopted as one of
the habits of gentleman, and afterward
spread rather lower, though it is not yet
by any means universal. 1t is chiefly
upon this habit that the present English
claim to superior cleanliness is founded.
In former times the English were proud
Of using more water than the French for
ordinary ablutions, and they pretended
to believe that the French were unac-
quainted with the use of soap, because
they did not provide public pieces OF soap
in the bed chambers of their hotels.
The English have now clean upper
class, but not yet clean people. at least
according to the evidence of physicians
who write on health. The same physi-
clans are still more severe on the con-
cealed dirtiness of many people in the
middle classes, subject that is pleasanter
not to dwell upon.
The English upper classes are, by their
good example and by their habit of trav
cling, the great teachers of cleanliness in
western Europe. Their baths, ewers,
water basins and other complicated toilet
arrangements arc copied very extensive
" in France. If you visit pot shop in a
small provincial town, quite remote from
the channel, you will find English wash
stand services of full size, or good French
copies of them; and if you 60 to the iron
monger's you will find all kinds of baths
for domestic use, including English
sponge baths. In French houses, where
the old, small ewers and basins are re-
tanned, they are now almost invariably
supplemented by capacious tin water
Jug on the floor. In fact, the French are
becoming cleaner people, an improve
ment in which the English have taken
the lead, being about forty years in ad-
vance.-PhiIip Gilbert Hamcrton in The
Atlantic.